23 March 2009
Informal Expert Group for the
ITU World Telecommunication Policy Forum
The Internet Society has been actively engaged in the preparation of the next World
Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF) that will be held from the 22nd to the 24th
April in Lisbon. As a member of the Informal Expert Group (IEG) for the 2009
WTPF, ISOC values this opportunity for a multi-stakeholder dialogue and the
opportunity to provide factual and technical information to ensure the discussions in
Lisbon are constructive, and informed.
We encourage the ITU Secretariat General to continue opening its conferences to all
interested stakeholders, and broadening participation, beyond its Member States and
Sector Members, to the Civil Society, the Internet community and the research
community. We strongly believe there is an overarching need to develop appropriate
multi-stakeholder forums that involve knowledgeable, interested and capable people
in crafting solutions that enhance the strength of the Internet as a vital tool for
communication and innovation.
The Internet Society would like to submit this paper on “Preserving the User Centric
Internet” as an official background paper to the 2009 World Telecommunication Policy
Forum. We hope this document will be able to provide valuable background information
to the discussions in Lisbon.
Bill Graham
Strategic Global Engagement
Office of the President
Internet Society
Internet Society
4, rue des Falaises
CH-1205 Geneva
Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 807 1444
Fax:+41 22 807 1445
http://www.isoc.org
1775 Wiehle Ave.
Suite 201
Reston, VA 20190, USA
Tel: +1 703 439 2120
Fax:+1 703 326 9881
Email: info@isoc.org
ISOC Contribution to World
Telecommunication Policy Forum:
Preserving the User Centric Internet
22 April, 2009
The Internet today faces a range of challenges that could impact the distributed, end-to-end and
open nature that users have come to take for granted. Some of these challenges are service and
architecture related, including but not limited to the Network Neutrality debate in the United
States, initiatives on Next Generation Networks, and the discussion in Europe and elsewhere
over the future of access regulation (unbundling) and competition. Other challenges relate to
the impact changes in Internet usage patterns and the explosion of content consumption and
creation are having on Internet architecture and business models.
These challenges are, in many ways, born of the Internet’s success. This “network of networks”
is enjoyed and shaped by an increasingly diverse range of players, from its users, to those who
manage the networks that comprise it, to nations whose economic competitive advantage
increasingly depends upon it. The Internet has shown itself to be supremely flexible and
adaptable; yet these growing commercial and economic challenges apply pressures that could
well change some of the principal elements underlying its success.
The Internet Society (ISOC) believes that the Internet’s future depends on a renewed
commitment to the principles that have made it so successful to date. For each of the various
challenges listed, ISOC is concerned that there has been insufficient focus on the imperative of
ensuring that the fundamental user-focused principles that the Internet is built upon are
preserved. The National Academies voiced their concern in this regard in their 2001
publication “The Internet’s Coming of Age”:
The design values of the Internet have been reinforced by the environment in which the
Internet was developed. In its early years as a cooperative research project, it was
isolated from some of the stresses and strains associated with commercial marketplace
Internet Society
4, rue des Falaises
CH-1205 Geneva
Switzerland
Tel: +41 22 807 1444
Fax:+41 22 807 1445
http://www.isoc.org
1775 Wiehle Ave.
Suite 201
Reston, VA 20190, USA
Tel: +1 703 439 2120
Fax:+1 703 326 9881
Email: info@isoc.org
interactions. …. Whether and how the traditional Internet design values will be
maintained is an important issue for the future of the Internet. 1
The importance of maintaining these design values, and the fundamental principles that are
based upon them, is at the heart of the Internet Society’s “User Centric Internet, an initiative
that calls for a renewed focus on the openness, transparency, edge-based intelligence and,
above all, user choice that are at the heart of the Internet today”. 2
I. The changing Internet
The success of the Internet has been due in large part to a common understanding or compact
that the Internet and the fundamental benefits that arise from the Internet model are good for
all. As Daniel Weitzner at MIT and W3C describes it:
The neutrality of the Internet arises out of a combination of basic architectural features
of Internet and World Wide Web standards, and business practices on the retail and
back-end of Internet service provider networks, all in a delicate balance with the
competitive market forces that tie service providers, technology developers, and content
providers together in a global, voluntary agreement to maintain these practices and
standards. This agreement has been maintained out of an implicit but shared belief that
cooperation to keep the Internet functioning as an open, interconnected and nondiscriminatory platform serves the interests of the parties individually, as well as
collectively.3
However, this common benefit and “delicate balance” that has stood the test of time so well is
now threatened by its very success.
The Internet is mainstream – it is no longer different or special. What is clear is that the
ubiquity and indispensability of the Internet have made it an important means of reaching
customers and building business opportunity. One of the consequences of the Internet’s
success is the desire to exploit it for business and competitive advantage. This in turn could
have a significant impact on shaping the Internet’s architecture, on the way commercial
offerings are structured and on the way in which the Internet is used.
One of the characteristics of the Internet experience to date has been relatively unconstrained
access for reasonable cost. Yet, the days of the Internet “all the bandwidth you can consume”
buffet appear to be under threat. Some suggest that the commoditization of Internet access has
limited the ability of service providers to compete and invest in new networks, and is forcing
them to find new business models and new ways of leveraging their assets. Content for
example, may well become an increasing differentiation characteristic of service offerings, with
providers creating new subscription packages that the Internet user can then choose to purchase
or not (not dissimilar to the cable model). But, how will evolving subscription packages impact
user choice? To what degree will they shape the users’ Internet experience? The traditional
content business is based upon proprietary product and premium content, much of which is
increasingly tailored to particular groups of consumers. Will users who are already
1
http://newton.nap.edu/html/coming_of_age/na_statement.html
See also the National Academies’ paper and http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1958.txt
3
http://dig.csail.mit.edu/2006/06/neutralnet.html
2
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downloading movies, music, sharing video, and other multimedia pay more for the services
they are already accessing? Undoubtedly there will be significant changes in commercial
offerings that are based upon or tie into Internet access. Whether they be content focused,
metered or Service Level Agreement based, innovation in commercial offerings should not be
constrained. That said, at the same time it is important that there is adequate competition in
service offerings and that there is a continuing ability for users to exercise choice in that regard.
Further, while accessing content is an increasingly important part of a user’s experience, they
should also be able to “use” the Internet in ways in which they are accustomed. While it is a
somewhat artificial distinction, it is important that future commercial offerings ensure that
Internet is available as a tool (for use) as well as another medium for viewing content.
The future of the Internet is also being shaped by other factors, ranging from changing industry
structure to questions related to the sustainability of the Internet given demands on the existing
architecture. These factors also are having a direct impact on the user through affecting their
ability to choose, inter alia, the service provider and the Internet service subscription of their
choice.
Around the globe the traditional communications environment is changing with likely
implications for the future of the Internet. In the United States, significant market restructuring
is resulting in far greater consolidated local and backbone/transit footprints than before,
lessening the dependencies on Weitzner’s compact mentioned above. How this will impact the
competitive landscape remains to be seen. In Europe, there is a considerable debate over the
desirability of continued access regulation such as local loop unbundling, particularly with
regards to new infrastructure investment. As the communications landscape changes around the
globe, what is clear is that a user’s ability to choose among providers is as important as, and has
a direct bearing on, their ability to choose among subscription and service packages. User
choice is dependent upon flourishing competition, so low barriers to market entry, not only in
terms of infrastructure investment, but also content provisioning and user-driven innovation, is
essential.
There are also wide-ranging discussions about the future viability of an Internet based on “best
effort” delivery. One of the defining characteristics of the Internet is that it is a truly two-way,
interactive medium driven by users (individual and community) innovation and creativity. This
interactivity, and the ability of users to create content and applications, is driving an
unprecedented explosion of user-created content and content sharing. This is not without its
consequences, one of which is the suggestion that the networks underpinning the Internet are
under increasing strain as more Internet users come on line and the availability and generation
of content continues. Typical network based responses would include QoS management and/or
bandwidth provisioning. One of the concerns expressed in this regard is whether the user’s
Internet subscription will be increasingly determined by network management or by traffic
type. For example, will services such as HDTV, DVD quality streaming and other highbandwidth services become part of “premium content” packages that mirror some of the cable
business offerings? And if services are broken out by particular characteristics, will those
characterized by latency and jitter intolerance for example be priced higher to deliver?
Some look to architectural solutions, with next generation networks promising feature-rich
triple or quadruple play converged services, in which quality-of-service (QoS) is ensured,
security enhanced and application and service management made simpler. Concerns have been
raised that such architectures could remove the control from the user and the intelligence from
the edge, and place them once again into the core of the network. The focus in these multiple-
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play architectures is also largely on the consumption of content – but how will they facilitate
and encourage its creation? Does the future of networking lie in the struggle between two
different worlds, that of the Internet model, with its associated openness and freedom and usercentricity, on the one hand, and the closed network model, in which choice and control no
longer sits with the user, on the other?
Whatever the future of commercial offerings and network architecture, how the Internet user
will benefit and how user-centricity will be preserved should be the yardstick by which they are
measured.
II. The importance of choice
Today’s Internet is a user centric focused network of networks. It is, to paraphrase the Federal
Communications Commission, the user who decides (largely) the content they wish to access,
the applications they wish to use, the devices they wish to attach to the network and the service
type or subscription package they wish to acquire.4 In each case the user makes choices and
they have a set of options to choose from. This issue of choice (and the control that goes hand
in hand with it) is fundamental to the user-centricity of the Internet.
Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google, captured it well when he said:
The Internet's open, neutral architecture has proven to be an enormous engine for market
innovation, economic growth, social discourse, and the free flow of ideas. The remarkable
success of the Internet can be traced to a few simple network principles - end-to-end design,
layered architecture, and open standards -- which together give consumers choice and
control over their online activities.5
A central issue to the Internet Society’s focus on the User Centric Internet is the degree to
which today’s Internet user will have the same “choice and control over their online activities”
in the future.
The issue of choice was touched upon briefly above with regards to service offerings and
access provision. Yet it is much broader in its importance: users expect to be able to use the
Internet as they wish, accessing the people, sites and content of their choice – recognizing that
they might be limited by what is legal/illegal and what may not be accessible for technical
reasons. At the moment that user experience is largely unconstrained.
One concern that has arisen is whether, with changing business models on the Internet, we are
moving, or being moved, from users to consumers. And with that possible change does the
Internet start to lose its user centricity and the users their control over this incredible tool? One
of the unintended consequences of such a change could be a lessening of the innovation that is
a result of not only the Internet’s architecture but also its openness and accessibility.
Innovation on the Internet has been driven by the user, by the individual, the entrepreneur, by
the small business, by the corporation. The nature of the Internet, its ubiquity, openness and
simplicity has enabled businesses to be built, communities to be formed, content to be created.
How would these have been possible without the ability of the user to leverage the Internet as
4
5
Also see the Internet Society’s principles http://www.isoc.org/pubpolpillar/principles.shtml
http://commerce.senate.gov/pdf/cerf-020706.pdf
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we know it today? How will the user’s ability to wield this tool, for innovation for example, be
different in the future?
This fundamental dynamic of choice is what has driven blogging, social networking, VoIP, and
other innovations on the Internet. This user-centricity has unleashed innovation in
communities, businesses, garage start-ups, and college dorm rooms. The ability to exploit the
medium in an unfettered way has been a driver of its success. It is easy to forget that the
Internet is more than a network of networks – rather it is a medium and tool that unleashes user
creativity and innovation, and that builds communities and human and institutional networks
around the globe, and drives commerce in unprecedented ways.
III. The future of the User Centric Internet
The Internet of today has been shaped by the fundamental principle that the user is in charge of
their online activities: today’s users choose and control where they wish to go on the Internet,
who they wish to communicate with, the content and communities they wish to access, and the
applications they wish to use. And most importantly, the intelligent edge and user centricity
have driven innovation, the digital economy, the Information society, while measurably
contributing to the wealth of nations. The Internet Society believes that these characteristics
have made the Internet a unique tool, and a users’ ability to wield this tool should not be
fettered.
The Internet Society believes that the debate over issues such as network neutrality rules masks
a more important discussion related to the future of the user centricity of the Internet and the
preservation of the underlying principles that have made it the success that it is today. This is a
discussion that merits much greater consideration as it has a direct bearing on the way the
Internet will evolve. For example, the user-centricity of the future Internet depends on how we
answer some fundamental yet complex questions, including:
•
How do we maintain and improve upon the user-defined experience that has driven the
overwhelming success of the Internet while encouraging investment and innovation,
new services, new content, and other benefits yet unforeseen?
•
As the Internet also becomes a significant medium for the provision and consumption of
content, how can its fundamental interactivity be preserved so that its use as a tool for
human creativity remains as compelling as ever? How does the user remain a user as
well as a consumer?
•
Will the Internet of the future be accessible and open as a result of new investment, new
networks and new business models or will the new networks be closed, tiered and
exclusive, carrying only certain content to certain subscribers?
These are not easy issues to balance, but the Internet Society believes that the guiding
principles for decision making must be the preservation of the Internet’s user-centricity through
its design values and its principles of openness, transparency, edge-based intelligence and,
above all, user choice. Architectures, business models, and policies that fundamentally shift
away from these design values are fundamentally shifting away from the Internet itself.
Ensuring innovation, investment and commercial opportunity along with continued and
enhanced user centricity will be essential to the Internet’s future success.
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IV. The Internet Society
The Internet Society (ISOC) is an independent international nonprofit organization with
headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland and Reston, Virginia, USA. ISOC acts as a global
clearinghouse for technically-sound, unbiased information about the Internet, as a provider of
education, and also as a facilitator and coordinator of Internet-related initiatives around the
world. It provides the organizational home for the IETF, IAB and IRTF.
ISOC was founded in 1992 to provide leadership in Internet related standards, education, and
policy. It is supported by an active, global network of members who help promote and pursue
the ISOC mission in all parts of the Internet community and all parts of the world. The Society
has more than 80 organizational and more than 28,000 individual members in over 80 chapters
who contribute to regionalizing the scope of ISOC technical, educational and policy initiatives.
ISOC is a Sector Member of ITU–T (Standards) and ITU-D (Development) since 1995. The
website is: http://www.isoc.org.
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